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Hey Boston, it’s good to be back here and to have a few games at the Garden for a little home cookin’. When this year’s schedule came out back in the summer, I looked at it and was thinkin’, we’re sure gonna have some early season tests for this team. I saw these first 10 games and I was like, man, here we go, no easin' into this thing for us, it’ll be on from the start.

It’s always a great test to start out like that and a great chance for us to come together quick. We def got a lot of the core players back, but there are also a bunch of new guys to work into the rotation and our schemes. So, nothing like getting thrown into the fire from the start to get that goin’.

Those first 10 games were really trying on us. The opponents that we faced, those guys weren’t slouches, not like this league has many of them. We opened up with Miami at home and with all that hype, you’d think it was the Finals or something. We had Cleveland and a young, talented Bulls team that always plays us tough.

Then we go out on an early road trip and play 4 games over 6 days with a back-to-back to start. We had to go into Oklahoma, Miami, Memphis, buildings that are hard to play in. I don’t care who you’re playing, it’s the NBA and all these guys are the best in the world, so you can’t go into any game thinkin it’s gonna be easy.

Some of the injuries we had didn’t help. Knick-knack stuff, but we had a bunch of guys like Shaq and Jermaine on the shelf early. It’s not easy to get a flow goin’ or get into a rhythm when you got a different group of guys suitin’ up every night. But every team’s gotta deal with it, just the nature of the game.

I’m just glad we were able to come out, you know, with the record we got. The important thing for us was to get through those games as strong as possible, and hopefully in another month everyone’ll be back full tilt. Then we can really start to come together as a team.

I like us, I like this team. I like the way we’re playing, and the guys that we put out there. Think we’ll look back and see that this first trip and the early season challenges really helped to bring this team together. We’re looking good and hopefully the best is yet to come.

But for now, I’m just glad to be home for a bit and get back to some home cookin'.

Paul Pierce's Truth on Health campaign empowers and encourages young people to lead healthier lives by providing them with the information, resources, and tools necessary to become more active and physically fit. To learn more, visit www.truthonhealth.org

Follow Paul Pierce on Twitter @PaulPierce34 and @TruthonHealth and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/paulpierce

This blog is not written or edited by Boston.com or the Boston Globe.
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About the author

Paul Pierce is the captain of the Boston Celtics. Pierce has spent his entire career with the Celtics since being drafted in 1998 out of Kansas, and led them to their 17th NBA Championship in 2008, when he was the NBA Finals MVP.
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